


In the Woods Somewhere

by dandyli0n



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Descriptions of wounds, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, I blame the Agibbang fest twitter, I know I'm disappointed too, title is a Hozier reference but work was NOT inspired by Hozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29270694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandyli0n/pseuds/dandyli0n
Summary: Jeongin has lived in the woods for as long as he remembered. Then, the creature came.Kind of written for Day Seven of Agibbang Fest's Innie B-day Event?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	In the Woods Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> So this is all because of the [ABF Day Seven tweet](https://twitter.com/AGIBBANGFEST/status/1358461553197133827?s=20). All of the daily concepts were great but this one I couldn't stay away from.
> 
> WARNINGS: There's a moderately graphic description of a wound, you can just skip it altogether, it's just one paragraph starting with "It nodded and reached out...". Also a dying animal is mentioned, but it survives! No animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic.
> 
> Uhhhhhhhh I wrote this in a couple hours. Enjoy?

Jeongin had always been alone, as long as he remembered. If there was a world outside of the forest he called home, he had never seen it, and if outside of these woods there were other creatures like him, with skin pale like exposed bone, hairless, walking on two feet, he had never met them. All he knew were the deer, the squirrels, the birds in the trees above and the fish and frogs in the creek by the old tree.

That had always been his favorite spot; in the soft bed of moss and dead leaves by the roots of the old tree, where sun shone down through the canopy above and warmed him when it was high in the sky. He sat there every day, no matter the season, with his wooden flute and played his songs. The birds added their own voices to them, as did the stream, whispering its own harmony to Jeongin’s tune.

It was peaceful and quiet. He swam in the creek when he tired of playing, searched for berries when he got hungry, ran with the foxes when he felt lonely, but he always came back to the tree, almost as if there was an invisible thread linking him to it. Eventually his hands caressed the same rough bark, and his body rested in the nook between the roots like it existed just for him.

Then the other creature came.

Jeongin was away from the tree, playing with the foxes when he felt it - a tugging in his chest, a rush in his head like dozens of birds crying out at once. He ran without knowing where he was going, the foxes following him until they stopped as the trees opened into the edge of the creek, always too shy to approach Jeongin’s tree, but he approached it without fear.

But what he saw made him stop in his tracks. There, nestled between the roots, lay an unfamiliar creature - no; it  _ was _ familiar, but Jeongin hadn’t seen anything like it anywhere but in his own reflection in the surface of the creek. It was big, with two long legs and arms, with a flat face, hairless except for the top of its head. Something covered most of its body, though - it looked soft to the touch, and it was dark like soil after rain.

He  _ stared _ . What  _ was _ that creature? Was it the same as him? Did it come to find him? Did it come to tell him what he was? Did it come to play? He could not wait to find out.

When he came closer, though, it did not show any signs of seeing him. He realized its eyes were closed, and when he got even closer, an unpleasant smell hit his nose, making him have to cover his face and cough. It smelled rotten, but its chest was rising and falling; it wasn’t  _ dead _ . Was it sleeping?

Jeongin raised a tentative hand to press his hand gently against its chest. It barely gave way, but he could clearly feel the creature’s lungs expanding. He touched its face next, grazing his fingers over its cheek and felt the rough bristles there, traced a path all the way to the soft expanse of the creature’s lips, the contrast of rough and velvety fascinating to him.

Then the creature’s eyes sluggishly opened. It jumped back, clearly startled by him, and Jeongin made himself small the way he knew most of the other creatures in the woods did when faced an unfamiliar animal.

But the creature did not move an inch from where it pressed itself further against Jeongin’s tree. Jeongin watched its dark, glassy eyes study him, the line of his shoulders, his hair and face, watched them linger on his dirt-stained hands and feet.

“Who are you?”

A… voice. Unlike the voices of the birds, or the barking of the foxes - a little rough like the croaking of frogs, yet still different.

Somehow, Jeongin found himself understanding the noise it made. It was strange; maybe it spoke in a way he knew… before? Before what, he didn’t know. Maybe he had always understood this creature’s language. Maybe, like the foxes and the birds, he understood it because it was his kind.

“Jeongin.” The sound of his own voice was as startling as the sound of the creature’s. His own was softer, quieter; more like the rustle of the wind in the leaves. The word he spoke, as strange as it was to hear it out loud for the first time, sounded correct; deep in his heart he knew that was who he was.  _ Jeongin _ .

The creature blinked at him slowly. “I… why are you here?”

It was a question he asked himself too often. “This is my home. I live here.”

“You?” Jeongin watched the creature shift cautiously. “Are you… are you the forest spirit they spoke about?”

There was a desperate lilt to the creature’s voice, one that made Jeongin pull back, wary of what it could mean. “Forest spirit?”  _ Those _ words sounded alien on his tongue. Jeongin was not a spirit, Jeongin was… “I’m Jeongin.”

He saw the creature’s face fall and in the back of his mind, he knew the expression meant disappointment. “The people in the village by these woods said there was a forest spirit here, that it guarded this forest. They said it could heal me.”

“Heal you?” Jeongin tilted his head to the side. Is that where the horrible smell was coming from? Was this creature injured? Was it sick?

It nodded and reached out to the material covering its legs, tugging at it until its leg was exposed. What Jeongin saw made him tremble. A whole piece of the creature’s leg was missing and the wound looked wet and blackened with disease. The smell was even stronger now, threatening to make Jeongin’s eyes water.

“The healer in my village said there was nothing he could do to save me.” The creature sounded like every word was hurting its throat. “That I was going to die in a few days. But I…” It paused to swallow heavily, its eyes sparkling with tears. “I cannot die. My family needs me. My brothers… they will not make it without me. So I… I came here. They said I would find the spirit by the water, that it could save me.” As its tears spilled over, the creature rubbed at them, only smearing them all over its cheeks. “I should have known better than to trust them. Now I am going to die here, in the middle of the woods, when I could be saying goodbye to them…”

The creature’s voice trailed off, but its entire frame continued to shake with heavy sobs, its hands trembling where they covered its face. Jeongin stared, not knowing what to do to ease the creature’s pain. For the longest time, they stayed like that, but then the shout of a bird stirred Jeongin into action.

He remembered a day, many many nights ago, when he was roused from sleep by a terrible cry. When he searched the woods for the source, he found a dying fox lying on a bed of moss. It shook and whined as it fought to stay alive, but it was useless. That time, too, he watched, at a loss for what to do, how to help the poor animal. Eventually, he did the only thing he knew how to do; he played his flute.

That night, the flute sounded different from how it sounded when he was lounging by the creek, when he played it just to pass the time and to make merry with the other creatures in the forest. The melody of it was almost haunting, and he felt as if it was being dragged out of his chest like a physical  _ thing _ , a fog made out of his compassion, of his love for another living being, channeled through the flute and covering the little corner of the woods, making the air tingle like the sky was on the verge of a storm.

Then the sounds stopped. Jeongin had thought the fox died, but then he saw it stir. It rolled over onto its feet, stood up and walked over to him. It nudged his feet with its snout, let him card his fingers through its blood-stained fur. Only then did he realize that he felt no wound. As he tried to check to make sure, a loud sound startled the fox and it ran off.

It was so long ago that he had convinced himself it had been a dream; but what if it was not? What if the song of his flute healed a dying fox? What if he could heal this creature’s wound too, save its life?

What if he  _ was _ the forest spirit?

With trembling fingers, Jeongin reached between the tree roots to retrieve his flute. It felt warm to the touch, and the press of it against his lip was familiar. Natural. It was made to rest against his mouth. He was made to wield it.

Jeongin played his song.

It was a song about a beautiful, strange creature. About the love it held for those it called its brothers. About the journey it made through an unfamiliar forest, with its hope and its dedication to its family the only thing giving it enough strength to stay on its feet. About the old tree by the creek that welcomed it into its arms, then called its guardian back because it knew. Jeongin did not know, but the tree knew he could help. Like an old friend who knows you better than you know yourself.

He watched, transfixed, as the blackened, jagged edges of the wound grew pink and tender, as the flesh and skin pulled together and sealed itself again. There were goosebumps all over his body. The air was thick, charged with the same strange energy he felt that night.

The creature stopped crying and stared, first at its closing wound, then at Jeongin. It stayed frozen as the last few notes of Jeongin’s song echoed through the woods, as he dropped the flute into his lap, feeling spent.

“It... it was you,” the creature spoke eventually, its voice clearly awed. “You saved me. Why did you lie? Was it a test?”

Jeongin shook his head slowly. “I did not know.” That did not taste like the truth on his tongue. “I forgot.”

“You forgot?”

“It has been such a long time…” He stared at his flute. How many nights? How many summer woods had it been? How long had he lived here?

Then the creature was upon him and Jeongin startled, only to find himself enveloped in a warm embrace. It was warmer than the embrace of his tree; it was softer, but no less loving.

For all its strangeness, Jeongin realized he enjoyed it.

“Thank you,” the creature said, its voice shaking. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Whatever you want in return, I will give you.”

“In return?” Jeongin stared at the creature’s face as it pulled back from the embrace. From this close, it was even more fascinating. Its cheek folded at the edge of its mouth, creating a divot that Jeongin could not tear his eyes away from.

“Yes? That is how all the stories go - a spirit does something for the human, then demands something in return.”

Jeongin’s mind still wrapped around the word  _ spirit _ with difficulty. It still sounded strange to his ears.  _ Human _ , though, was a word that sounded familiar.

“What is a human?”

The creature’s face scrunched up. “Uh. Human is… me. I am a human. I am… a person, with no magic. I am mortal, I get hungry and sick and tired.”

That was more confusing to Jeongin than anything. He got hungry to… did he not? He ate berries, every few days, when his tongue longed for them. Was that not hunger?

“We are not the same kind?” Was he understanding the creature correctly?

“No? I cannot heal people with a magical flute. I would not survive in a forest without any clothes, no bread or fire.”

The creature… the  _ human _ was using so many unfamiliar words, Jeongin’s head was spinning.

“Human,” he said, his voice trembling slightly on the word.  _ Human _ .  _ Spirit _ . He looked to the tree for guidance, and it gazed down on him lovingly. It said he was ready to remember. “I… have decided the price for your life.”

He met the human’s eyes. They looked solemn now, not as joyful as when it had been thanking Jeongin for his life. Its only response was a nod.

“I want you to teach me. You are free to leave now, but you must come back. I want to know… what  _ clothes _ are. And bread. I want to know if anyone in the village had met me before. I… I want to remember.”

The human’s eyes slowly filled with warmth, almost tinged with compassion? Jeongin would even say they looked beautiful when colored with such an emotion. “Very well. I’ll come back, and I’ll bring bread and clothes to show you.” Its mouth moved in a strange way that made its face brighter, softer. “Is there anything else I could do for you?”

Slowly, Jeongin nodded. “Tell me your name.”

“They call me Chan.”


End file.
